We were treated to a hands-on demo of Funcom’s upcoming release, and we also were guided along on a tour of the game’s incredibly in-depth progression system. With over 500 unique skills, a level-less system, three-faction PVP, and action-oriented combat (let’s not forget the ARGs and general horror setting), The Secret World is sizing up to be one of the most innovative MMOs in ages. June can’t come fast enough.

Yet that didn't stop them from screwing up with their Origin service. Apparently my Chinese credit card is black money, even though it's a mastercard. Same with my paypal. When a company doesn't even want you money... I don't even....

Yet that didn't stop them from screwing up with their Origin service. Apparently my Chinese credit card is black money, even though it's a mastercard. Same with my paypal. When a company doesn't even want you money... I don't even....

They weren't "hands-off" with the Origin service so what does that have to do with anything?

Originally Posted by Bob from Accounting

It was said the same about swtor.

EA owns Bioware so SWTOR was made by EA.
Funcom owns Funcom and EA doesn't have anything to do with Funcom or the game except distributing the game to stores etc.

During PAX East 2012 this year, I finally had time to sit down and actually get my hands on Funcom’s The Secret World. It wasn’t a long demo time, but what I did play, I immediately loved. Nothing like running around Kingsmouth (perfect New England-esque setting for a Boston convention) shooting things with my rifle and whipping out my chaos magic to make me get really amped up for a horror MMORPG. It’s fast, fluid, and fun to switch between wielding the ranged rifle and more up-close AOE magic like Chaos.

After the brief presentation from Tor Andersen (see the video below) on skills, I got to rove around Kingsmouth myself for a good while. What immediately jumped out at me was the cinematic nature of the quests. Like Tortage in Age of Conan, and now SWTOR, the main story-based missions in TSW are fully voiced and animated. I spoke to a wicked looking guy in a cowboy hat that immediately reminded Mike and I of True Grit’s Rooster Cogburn, who sent me on one of my first tasks in the game. Now I’ll admit, the atmosphere of the show was loud and nearly deafening, and my only real concern was trying out the combat. I couldn’t tell you exactly what I was tasked with doing, and I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you anyway.

The game does use a waypoint system though, and after speaking to Rooster-alike, I saw that my next target was somewhere 250 meters away or so. I don’t know if the entire quest system will follow this sort of “waypoint” design, but part of me hopes I can turn it off. I like the idea of really figuring stuff out in TSW and the waypoints just seem like cheating in a way.

The combat itself was fantastic. Chaos Magic, as explained in the video, focuses on AOE damage surrounding your character. It’s more melee magic than ranged, and as such has a spell that sends you whirling with dark energy chains flailing about into the heat of battle. Once in, you can tear apart people with your claw weapons if you’re equipping them in your build. In my character’s case, I was wielding an assault rifle, which does better single-target damage from afar. So I wound up using my “Red Mist” (think sniper headshot) skill from afar, and then when it aggroed a group I would charge in and pummel them with chaos magic. It really felt good and I can’t wait to mess around with the skill and ability wheel to make my own builds.

Tor mentioned that you can spend all of your points on filling out “Templates” which are prescribed builds for certain themes in the game (like a ninja for example), and doing so would get you some cool cosmetic gear to make you look like a ninja. I can definitely see myself toying with templates to get the cosmetic items and to get some ideas for builds. But what intrigues me more is figuring out a way to synergize something like the hammer and chaos magic to make a build that’s an all-out melee DPS machine.

We’re not far now from The Secret World’s June launch, and there definitely still seems to be a lot we’ve not discovered about the game. I for one want to know more and more about the PVP. But what we have seen continues to impress us, and the innovation levels here are off the charts. Don’t forget to watch that video from the show floor for a good explanation of the skill system, and mind the slanted vantage point. Hopefully it won’t be long before the beta doors open and we all see whether Funcom’s latest has the polish and content it needs to succeed. So far, so very good.

I was excited about the game when I first heard about it a year or so ago, but the more info we get I get less excited. None of the gameplay I've seen looks exciting to me. I was a huge fan of the RuneScape questing system and when I first heard about TSW I got the feeling that we'd go on long questlines to unravel conspiracies even taking gameplay out of the game to look up real google searches and stuff like that. Now, it looks like another monsterhunting buttonmashing WoW-simulator. We'll see. The terrible cutscene we saw with the lesbian chicks didn't really help either.

Yet that didn't stop them from screwing up with their Origin service. Apparently my Chinese credit card is black money, even though it's a mastercard. Same with my paypal. When a company doesn't even want you money... I don't even....

Funcom does not handle the chinese payment, it goes threw a different server that handles it. Bring it up with them not funcom.

---------- Post added 2012-04-10 at 08:57 PM ----------

I was hoping chaos magic was black and spooky (like that one guy in the trench coat from the trailers), so is blood magic the black and spooky stuff? Or was he using fist weapons?

I cant take this game seriously with Funcom and EA behind it, I have bad experiences with both companies, also the game is being released to probably the most competitive MMO market there has ever been with WoW, TOR, Rift and soon to be Guild Wars 2 out I just cant see this making an impact.

I said iv had bad experiences with both companies...I can make a list of games if you want? AoC being the first terrible game I played from Funcom and most EA games these days just feel like a cash cow that's why I feel it wont make an impact because the companies behind it cant be trusted IMO.

It was terrible for you, funcom is constantly stepping up their game however as with other companies, don't judge a company based on a game that came out what 7 years ago?

well isn't it the only game they have released in the past 12 years? how else are you supposed to judge them? look im not bashing the game I just don't like either company so I wont be buying it, I didn't think id have to argue my point about not liking a company...

EA is just a publisher, they just distribute the game in the US they don't do anything to this game besides sell it.

I wish that's how it worked... in reality, publishers have a lot of power over the developers regarding what they deem suitible to make the game successful and when certain information has to come to the light. That's, partly, why I'm getting less and less excited about the game as it's looking more and more like an unoriginal hotkey MMO.

well isn't it the only game they have released in the past 12 years? how else are you supposed to judge them? look im not bashing the game I just don't like either company so I wont be buying it, I didn't think id have to argue my point about not liking a company...

Yea games years and years ago and like I said like all companys they are stepping up. You didn't like AoC so I don't think you played any other games (and most 2000 games were terrible not everyone is WoW making bitch loads of money for development). However 4 years went into making TSW. If you are not going to at least try it that is just plain ignorance.

Like I said before you don't have a valid reason.

I wish that's how it worked... in reality, publishers have a lot of power over the developers regarding what they deem suitible to make the game successful and when certain information has to come to the light. That's, partly, why I'm getting less and less excited about the game as it's looking more and more like an unoriginal hotkey MMO.

EA is distributing.

dis

tri

bu

ting.

You are giving publishers too much credit. If it wasn't EA publishing it would be another company and people will still be complaining about how that company is bad. They can't win.

Your point is that a distributor has a lot of influence that goes into this game? Which they really don't.

Unless you can show me an example of such a thing? Then I will agree with you, but if EA really had a say in this game, TSW would of been released months ago (when it was suppose to) or even years ago.